BlackBerry Software Roundup for January 30th, 2009!

Hope everyone out there had a great January. Personally, I can't wait till spring. The countdown is officially on for me. Come March temperatures start to get a little more reasonable around here :) Covered this week in my Software Roundup are the following titles:

Dial your contacts, even send SMS/PIN messages, emails... or even browse websites all using picture ID's! That's right, with PictureDial for the Storm you can take a picture, or use any gif, png or jpg image to dial your contacts and more. You can assign PictureDial to the left or right convenience button for quick and easy access. PictureDial supports both the Storm 9500 and 9530.

Covered this one last week, but I wanted to touch on it again for anyone that might have missed it. TalkLater is a handy new tool that lets you set callback reminders within your address book or call log. You can set it to remind you at set intervals who to call, and when to call them. Notifications can be set to pop-up, vibration and ringtone. All are selectable by you. With TalkLater you'll never forget to make an important phone call again.

EveryHour is a simple time notification app. Get alerted by a predefined sound (or select your own) every hour and/or every half hour. There are single and multi sound notification types... A simple app for sure, but one that could certainly come in handy. All you need is OS 4.2.1 or newer to run EveryHour.

Ring With Vibe lets you customize how you hear a ringtone. Leave your phone in silent or vibrate mode and customize when and how you want to be notified of incoming calls. Never miss a call again! Set the app to 'ring always' and your device will vibrate and ring. There are also 'ring while charging' and 'ring when out of holster' settings you can try out. OS 4.2 or newer is needed to run this one.

If you're in the crazy markets these days, you might want to give this app a look. Stock Manager lets you check stock and index status, plus view the latest news from the markets. It's very simple and easy to use, and features support for all markets. The stock quotes come direct from Yahoo! Finance's website. Cool for checking stocks while you're on the run.

BeamReader is the first full fidelity PDF reader for your Berry! View PDF attachments and documents stored on your memory card without any quality loss. All original fonts, images and formatting is preserved, and the files will look exactly as they do on your PC. Rendering of documents is local to your Berry, so there's no need to worry about racking up any data charges. In addition to its PDF viewing abilities, BeamReader is also a fully featured file manager. You gotta check it out to see for yourself!

To get BeamReader for $19.99 at ShopCrackBerry.com. Simply select your OS below:

Need help finding a place to eat? Tired of the same old restaurants time and again? With Where2Eat? you can get lists of restaurants nearest you. The app only shows 3 restaurants at a time to help you make a decision quickly. Once you find a restaurant you're interested in, simply select it to see all of the pertinent data including phone number, address, type of food, etc... Handy stuff.

To go along with the Ring With Vibe covered in the new software section this week, Ring and Vibrate is a small app that lets your Berry let out a ringtone and vibration alert at the same time. With it, you can also set your own vibration pattern (cool). Set the interval between each vibration, the duration of each vibration, and the pattern of the vibrations (wanted to see how many times I could work in 'vibration'). Also included in the app is a feature which will auto-lock your device after a call ends. Buy it and receive free upgrades for future versions!

doubleTwist desktop is a free PC app that lets you sync your video, images and iTunes playlists to your Berry and even gaming consoles. It will also help you send media files on to friends and family. Create MP3 versions of iTunes purchases, and easily transfer all of the videos shot with your device to your PC. Automatic conversion between a bunch of media formats, and optimization of video and audio quality settings is all built-in. The app requires Windows XP or Vista.

Need to free up some memory? (on your device, silly :P) Now you can quickly with QuickPull. This app simulates a 'battery pull' soft reset. It's quick and easy to use and install, and it really works. It's compatible with most Berry devices, including the BlackBerry Storm. To run this one, all you need is OS 4.2 or newer.

This one is, well... a US Time Zone Screensaver! Surprised? This free download is a handy one if you'd like to fool around with some new screensaver action. It lets you view local times in four US time zones over top of one of three background maps.

If you travel a lot, chances are you've stayed at a Starwood Hotel or Resort through the years. Recently, they announced that their Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) Mobile site is now available in six additional languages. At the moment you can get it in Japanese, Chinese and English. Coming soon are Spanish, German, French and Italian. Upon visiting the site you can explore various hotels around the world, book accomodations, contact customer service and even get directions to the hotel or resort to which you are traveling.

Have news on BlackBerry software? New software, upgraded software,
freesoftware... it's all good! If you have any software news tips send
themin to me at softwareroundup@crackberry.com. I can't do it without your help!

Ring with vibe is a little different. The other programs are for people who use a standard ringer and want to add vibe at the same time.

I created the Ring with vibe program to be the opposite. I keep my phone in vibrate all the time, and found in some occasions (like when I am charging my phone) that I want it to ring as well, so I don't miss a call.

Depends on how you use your phone. If you want your phone to always make noise and add a ring for calls, then the other programs are better for you. but if you prefer silent or vibe all the time, then you may want to use ring with vibe.

I have 4.2 on my 8800. I tried beamreader, which is nice, except that the only thing you can open is stuff you download to your BB, or stuff you put on your memory card. You CAN NOT open pdf files in an email unless you have 4.5 or higher. This is very frustrating, but support told me it's a restriction with the OS. It can't be done. That's basically the only reason I'd buy it, so unfortunately, it's useless for me.

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